Information and communication technologies are of vital important for the local government in Berlin, the Senate, according to Andreas Statzkowski, State Secretary at the Senate Department for Internal Affairs and Sport, in his address at the opening of LinuxTag on Wednesday. He spoke out in favour of the shared use of Open Source and proprietary software in public administration. The decisive factor is to ensure the right combination. The state secretary mentioned that some 72,000 people are currently employed in IT in the Berlin administrative sector. It can therefore be assumed that the level of technical equipment used is approaching 100 per cent. At the present time the proportion of Open Source software in use is only about one per cent, Statzkowski reported, and this is obviously an area with considerable pent-up demand. In the case of office programmes this is already as much as 20 per cent, a five per cent increase over the previous year. Even greater efforts will be made to deploy Open Source software, the state secretary emphasised.
A full daily programme
Few events anywhere in the world provide such a comprehensive review of current trends and developments in Linux and free software, explained Michael T. Hofer, a member of the management board of Messe Berlin, at the opening of LinuxTag 2013. There are also hardly any other events in the world at which the users and developers of free software can meet in such large numbers. Hofer also drew attention to the full programme of meetings and conferences taking place during the four days of this trade show. LinuxTag and its partner events Open-IT Summit and OpenStack Day offer a choice of more than 200 conference papers and some 120 presentations by companies and projects.
An important meeting place for the community and business
“The community features strongly at LinuxTag and we have small, medium-sized and large companies that deploy Open Source software“, said Nils Magnus, Director of LinuxTag e.V., during his welcoming address on the first day of the trade show. He drew attention to the new halls and rooms being used, changes in the structure, and the continuing development of the trade show concept. As a result, and in response to the particular wishes of the exhibitors, this has resulted in a more concentrated and more compact presentation. This year the distances between the exhibition and conference rooms have been reduced to a minimum ”It is the interaction between the projects and the companies using Open Source software that is responsible for the success of this event“, according to Magnus.
The invisible aspects that make Linux a success
Linux is particularly successful in those areas that are not visible, according to Dr. Carsten Emde, Chief Executive of the Open Source Automation Development Lab (OSADL) consortium, speaking at the LinuxTag 2013 press conference on Wednesday. Examples of such areas that he gave included servers, super computers and embedded systems. The OSADL chief executive estimates that there are an average of around three to ten Linux systems in every household, and between 1,000 and 10.000 Linux users in the domestic sector. He believes that this year two thirds to three quarters of the newly developed equipment uses embedded Open Source systems as its basis. One decisive advantage of such software lies in the many years of use that it offers, especially on larger equipment. By way of contrast proprietary programme versions usually cease to be updated after only a few years.
Well known hosters are searching for personnel
STRATO was founded in1997, when it was one of the first such start-ups in this field. This fact was mentioned by René Wienholtz, Member of the Technology and Innovation Board of STRATO AG, speaking to representatives of the press at the start of LinuxTag. This Berlin-based company is now one of the world’s leading hosters, managing over four million domains in six countries. Its appearance at LinuxTag this year is primarily concerned with the search for qualified personnel, Wienholtz stated. “The services that we offer involve a great deal of technology, much of which is created by individuals.“ STRATO is looking in particular for systems administrators and for Perl, C/C++ and JavaScript developers. Wienholtz continued by saying: “We offer scope for projects in a relaxed atmosphere, along with continuity and all the benefits associated with a profitable and experienced IT company.“
Open-IT Summit makes its debut at this trade show
Petra Kuhfuss, Project Manager at Messe Berlin GmbH, invited journalists to visit the Open-IT Summit, which is being held parallel with LinuxTag 2013 for the first time this year. This event has been set up in response to a wish expressed by many exhibitors for a more pronounced business profile. The participating firms are all from the community and now have an opportunity to present themselves in the business area. “We have 25 exhibitors at the first Open-IT Summit. Considering the very short time available for preparation this is remarkable“, the project manager commented Together with the companies participating in LinuxTag this combination of events features 70 projects as well as 46 commercial exhibitors.
From industrial control systems to mini computers
Many fascinating aspects are on offer from the 70 projects represented at LinuxTag 2013, and this was also mentioned by Nils Magnus, Director of LinuxTag e.V. in his meeting with the press on the first day of the event. “This is a large number and very encouraging“, said Magnus, “but it also involves a great deal of organisation” The items being presented here include many hardware themes. The programme of papers is a very extensive one again this year, ranging from industrial control systems to mini computers. Magnus expects the more compact layout of this year’s event to lead to an even more intensive exchange of views. One of the main topics this year concerns career advancement, and among the aspects covered are an applicants’ check. Anyone who is interested can bring their application folders to the trade show to be checked by experts.
Presentation of the Univention Graduates’ Prize
At the opening of LinuxTag 2013 on Wednesday Peter Ganten, Chief Executive of Univention GmbH, presented awards to the three winners of this year’s Univention Graduates’ Prize. All of them have developed Open Source software with a strong practical relevance as part of their final diploma work. The first prize, worth 2,000 euros, went to Alexander Bertram, who has been studying information technology at Fachhochschule Wedel, for his work entitled “AntScout – Dynamic Routing on OpenStreetMap“ in which he implemented the prototype of a special algorithm for dynamic route-finding in the Open Source navigation system ”OpenStreetMap“. This enables Open Source-based navigation systems to incorporate the latest features such as the volume of traffic, risk of congestion or items of particular interest to drivers such as points of interest when calculating the optimum route. The thesis produced by Alexander Hübner was entitled “SRSTP - A Security Enhancement for IEEE 802.1D“ and was awarded the second prize, worth 1,000 euros. In third place, with a value of 500 euros, was Filip with his thesis: “Implementing a Graphic Interface to Support Robot Software Development in ROS“.
(Hall 6.3, contact: Silvia Frank, telephone: +49-421-222320, email: frank@univention.de, internet: www.univention.de)
Modelling a computing centre landscape in Yaml format
The YADT management tool YADT enables users to model their computing centre landscape in a simple, humanly readable Yaml format. The software packaging and its configuration, the definition of the package and service dependencies and several basic conventions are used to determine the YADT model. Using this data the tool can introduce changes to the software and to the configuration of the respective user computer on any number of hosts. YADT also provides all the updates for the relevant user operating system. This even functions separately from the individual application and configuration. This management tool also ensures that the updates and service reboots occur in the right sequence throughout the entire computing centre.
(Hall 7.1c, Stand 145, contact: Marcel Wolf, email: yadt-devel@googlegroups.com, internet: www.yadt-project.org
About LinuxTag
LinuxTag is Europe's leading trade fair and conference on Linux and open source software. The four-day event has been taking place since 1996, and annually on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds since 2007. It offers the latest information for professional users, decision-makers, developers, newcomers and the community. In addition to the programme of papers and a separate Business & Public Authorities Conference, LinuxTag traditionally hosts an exhibition featuring projects and companies associated with the Open Source sector. Verein LinuxTag e.V. is the non-commercial organiser of the event, which is staged jointly with Messe Berlin GmbH. More details are available at www.linuxtag.org